ACORN Received Funds From the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

When you hear about ACORN getting help from the Justice Department (DOJ), most people hope it refers to the community organizing group getting an nice small room with bars, a warm bed and three squares a day. Unfortunately this is about the criminal enterprise ACORN, receiving money from the US department charged with maintaining law and order.

The Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department investigated whether the DOJ had provided grants to ACORN. The investigation covered whether:

The DOJ conducted any reviews or audits of the use of DOJ grant funds awarded to ACORN.

Initially they did not find any direct DOJ grants to ACORN during the past 7 years, but they did find one recipient of DOJ grant funds entered into a sub-agreement with ACORN for program activities. They also found three instances in which a DOJ grantee entered into a sub-award with an ACORN affiliate, and one direct grant of DOJ funds to an affiliate of ACORN, In total, ACORN received one direct grant and four sub-awards totaling approximately $200,000 between fiscal years (FY) 2002 and 2009.

The report, requested by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Lamar Smith (R-Texas), also found a few instances of ACORN mismanagement of federally contracted work.

For example, ACORN received a $20,000 sub-contract to do community outreach on crime prevention in New York. The organization that contracted with ACORN has not released the funds yet, claiming that ACORN submitted reimbursements “outside the scope of the agreement,” including “fringe benefits” for the salaried staffer working on the project.

In another instance the city of Phoenix contracted with the “ACORN Institute” to receive about $9,000 to canvass citizens and raise awareness about a tax credit and a tax assistance program. The city hasn’t paid ACORN yet due to “poor reporting by the ACORN Institute regarding another project not related to DOJ grant funds.” Phoenix is trying to terminate its contract with ACORN.

The DOJ did not audit the funds that went to ACORN or its affiliates, but did conduct an audit of one of the organizations that contracted with an ACORN affiliate. That audit concluded that the organization “did not properly manage the grant and did not adequately monitor some of its 36 sub-grantees, including the [American Institute of Social Justice],” an ACORN affiliate.

Smith seized on the report to call for a broader review of ACORN activities.

“Given the willingness of some ACORN employees to ignore the law, it comes as no surprise that the IG’s report found several instances in which ACORN and its affiliates failed to adhere to proper procedures,” Smith said in a statement.

“Because the Justice Department’s review found only small amounts of taxpayer dollars going to ACORN, it is imperative that the Inspectors General from federal agencies that have provided millions to ACORN undertake the same kind of review. The Justice Department IG’s report may prove to be just the tip of an iceberg-sized fraud.”

In a related story Andrew Breitbart had some choice words for the Eric Holder, the Head of the Justice Department about ACORN on Sean Hannity last night:

BREITBART: Well, there’s a lot of hypocrisy, and the dust has settled for ACORN. And at the end of the day they’ve recognized that Eric Holder, the attorney general, has not initiated an investigation into ACORN, after we now have seven tapes. There were five initially that came out.

ACORN was defunded by the Senate, was defunded by the House, lost its link to the Census. While all that damage occurred, Congress didn’t come in to investigate them. Obviously, not the attorney general’s office.

And they’ve now realized, “Let’s get back into — get back into business,” because they realize that the dust settled, and they were not being investigated. It was Hannah, James and me who were being investigated. That’s why we’ve been forced to offer this latest tape.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, are you saying, Andrew, that there are more tapes?

BREITBART: Oh, my goodness, there are. Not only are there more tapes; it’s not just ACORN.

HANNITY: Wow.

BREITBART: And this message is to Attorney General Holder. I want you to know that we have more tapes. It’s not just ACORN. And we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle.

Or else, if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have. We will comply with you. We will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear, that this is a dangerous organization.

So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes. And if you don’t give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.

Wow !! Kind of makes one hope that Holder does not bother to investigate so we can see what Andrew Brietbart has up his sleeve. Well since we have to wait for Brietbart’s evidence, let me suggest you take a click over to Michelle Malkin’s site where she has a story about MORE corruption in the justice department. Click on the headline below: